Cats, Otters, and 19 girls

Saturday at 9:00 AM, five vehicles, 19 girl scouts, and eight adults headed out on a four hour drive. We arrived in Duluth after a picnic lunch. There was only a small skirmish in between the four girls in my car.

At the zoo, we divided into different groups. The zoo was fun. The girls wanted to run to everything, and then we had a hard time dragging them away from each exhibit. Me and my co-mom found ourselves completely fascinated by the bats. Yes, the bats. It was so amazing watching them interact with each other.

Then we drove to the restaurant for dinner and on to the Aquarium where we unpacked the cars in the rain bringing in bags, sleeping bags, and pillows.

The Aquarium was fabulous. We learned all about sea horses, had a behind the scenes tour and saw the kitchen where the animal and fishes' food were prepared. Including the defrosted rats and baggies of rat and mice-icles. By then, it was pretty late because our schedule was on Central time, but our bodies on Eastern. We got the girls snacked, jamied, teeth brushed, and all in sleeping bags. They were so tired, they almost all fell asleep with almost no discussion or noise!

During one of the girls classroom activities, I had wandered into the main exhibit area. I was drawn to the otter tank. They have two otters. The otters kept swimming and then jumping out of the water to stand at the window on a tiny ledge before falling back into the water and doing it again. I wondered if they were interacting with me or just playing. So, I wandered to the other side of the corner I was standing. The otters followed me and played the same game in the new corner. It took everything I had to leave and return to the classroom.

In the morning, we watched the sea horses playing. They mate for life, and each morning, they spend an hour with their tails entwined as they talk to their mate. Then the men stay attached to their seaweed while they wait for the eggs the female transferred to them to hatch while the women head out for coffee with their friends.

Slowly the girls woke up and we gave them time to look at the exhibits, have breakfast, get dressed and packed up.

When the person in charge of feeding arrived at work, we all gathered around the otter exhibit to watch them feed the otters. BUT, as a special bonus, we were able to walk behind the exhibit (where the otter's sleep) to watch them have their private breakfast of cat food and carrots. Then, they cleaned out the pen and attached bananas with some peanut butter to the walls of the rocks so we could watch them jump and eat. Then, they scratched their faces on the tree limbs as they continued to ignore that we were on the other side of the window. When they were finished, one left the public view to sleep while the other first laid completely before curling up in a little ball just like my cats at home, to sleep.

Where did the cats come into the trip - the otters are so very catlike that I'm still amazed.

My cold is a bit worse now, but I had a great weekend! (sorry about the lack of cut - I'm too lazy to go back and fix it)